This specification relates to industrial printing systems, and in particular, systems and techniques relating to laser printing product codes on the packaging of products in a manufacturing or distribution facility.
Various industrial printing technologies are known and enable the printing of important information (e.g., sell by dates) on packaging. Dot-matrix type laser marking devices have been used to print identification code on commercial products. These codes are readily observable on common products such as soda cans, cosmetics, pet food containers, etc. Some government regulatory agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S., may require certain products to have such codes. These codes often include information that is unique to the time and place at which the product is manufactured. For instance, many codes communicate a batch number associated with a product. Many codes go further and indicate the actual time and date of manufacture. Because some codes relate to unique manufacturing parameters (e.g., time and date), some codes cannot be pre-printed on a label for a product. Hence, a code is often printed on the label after the product is manufactured. U.S. Pat. No. 7,046,267 describes a laser printing system that organizes an image into a sequence of “stripes” for laser printing so as to provide an efficient print order of characters and symbols, which can improve printing by using more of the laser's exposure window (aperture) and reducing an amount of laser deflection motion between marking operations.